1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drive assist system and a navigation system for a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
A drive assist system, which includes cameras for capturing a peripheral image around a vehicle and provides drive assistance to a driver of the vehicle through use of the captured peripheral image, is recited in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Number 2001-116567. This drive assist system constitutes a part of a navigation system. Furthermore, in this system, six cameras are provided to capture images of a front view, a right oblique front view, a left oblique front view, a rear view, a right oblique rear view and a left oblique rear view of the vehicle, respectively. Based on the image data of these captured images, a bird's-eye view, which indicates whether an obstacle(s) is present in an area around the vehicle, is produced and is displayed on a display device. Furthermore, in this case, the navigation system can display a sensed position of the vehicle together with a map on the display device. The displayed screen on the display device is switched when the driver of the vehicle operates a corresponding touch panel or provides a corresponding voice input.
Vehicle-to-vehicle collisions, vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions and vehicle-to-bicycle collisions at, for example, crossroad junctions and T-junctions constitute a large ratio of traffic accidents. Particularly, these collisions tend to occur in a junction of roads where a width of at least one of the roads is narrow, in a junction of roads where a traffic signal and a pedestrian crossing is absent, or in a junction of roads where a view is poor. Therefore, there is a need for limiting occurrence of such collisions. Thus, there is a market demand for a drive assist system, which includes a car navigation apparatus and effectively limits occurrence of the collisions in the junctions to assist the safe drive of the driver.
However, the previously proposed drive assist system is intended to allow the driver to recognize obstacles around the own vehicle in a car park or a narrow road having crowded traffic and is not intended to improve the safety. Furthermore, in the previously proposed drive assist system, switching from the navigational screen to the bird's eye view diagram screen and switching from the bird's eye view diagram screen to the navigational screen are executed based on the manual key entry or voice input from the user, so that the user is required to perform the bothersome operation, and the switching may not be executed at appropriate timing in some cases.